ART OF MEDICINE

Eating for Heart Health

Your diet, as most people know, is a big component of healthy living. There’s even much truth to the idiom, “You are what you eat!” However, when it comes to living with chronic conditions such asheart disease and diabetes, having the right diet becomes even more important, as the foods you eat can make a huge difference not only in the symptoms you experience day to day, but also in the way your chronic conditions progress over time.

What this means is that with the right diet, when incorporated into a healthy lifestyle, you can take control of your health by helping to slow or even reverse your chronic conditions. When it comes to heart disease, being on a heart-healthy diet canprotect you against further narrowing of your heart’s blood vessels and in turn help prevent further complications such as heart attack and strokes.

In this post we will discuss what types of foods make up a heart healthy diet. In a subsequent post, we will cover the essentials of a specific component of heart healthy eating–the low salt diet.

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– Part I –Overview of the Heart Healthy Diet

So why should you eat a heart healthy diet? If you already have heart disease, the two main goals of a heart-healthy diet is to stop the worsening of your heart disease and to decrease your risk of complications (such as a heart attack or a stroke). If you do not have heart disease, the aim is to keep your heart healthy and functioning well for many, many years to come.

1. Avoiding foods that are high in saturated and trans fats (helps your LDLlevel)2. Eating foods that are good in beneficial fat (such as omega-3 fats, which helps your HDL level)3. Limiting sugary foods4. Avoiding salty foods and those high in sodium (helps blood pressure)

– Part II –Practical Tips to get you Started

There are many ways to decrease bad fats while keeping food tasty! While the best way to see how much bad fats are in your foods is to check the Nutrition Facts label, here are some general rules your doctor would recommend following:

POETRY & MEDICINE

🌺 ABOUT PHOEBE 🌺

A lover of animals and a caregiver by trade who, through these scribbles, ponders over her days spent behind the white coat and her life alongside a lovable feline named Samantha and a gentle giant named George. 😊